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Long Run Sundays: Tea Party + The B Word

I hope that everyone had a great weekend! Nothing popped up in the local news about Friday’s gym incident, so I’m going to take that to mean that the person is okay.

Yesterday, I met a bunch of my girlfriends at Wystone’s World Teas for some late afternoon treats. We went there a couple of months ago for a tea tasting and fell in love with the place. It’s a fairly casual place, but they have a great selection of teas, and their food is good, too.

I started off with the coconut green tea that I had last time. I don’t normally care much for coconut, but this tea is so good.

I didn’t have lunch yet, so I ordered the cucumber tea sandwiches with vegetable soup.

Well, when the dish came out, it came with tomato soup. Our waiter said he thought I would like to try that one instead, so he brought it out with my dish and then brought me my vegetable soup separately for no extra charge. I already love their tomato soup, so it was nice to have both.

Tomato soup wins for sure, but it was nice to get a dose of veggies. To satisfy my sweet tooth, I also ordered an apple cinnamon scone that came with raspberry sauce and cream.

The scone was still warm when it came out and was oh-so-good! The other girls ordered desserts, and they were all so tasty.

It was so nice to chit chat over tea and yummy treats before heading down to Colorado Springs to take Mochi to my mom’s house. Since I have to work late pretty much all this week, I figured it would be good to have Mochi go down a week early rather than be cooped up at home for 12+ hours alone. Bye bye for a few weeks, Mochi :(

A Dreaded B* Word

No, I’m not talking about the word that Jay-Z decided he’s going to give up for a week since having a daughter. I think I’ve figured out why my feet have been in pain since that one awful run a couple of weeks ago. My sister saw my feet and made fun of how I have a bump that protrudes near each of my pinky toes.

I ended up Googling it, and the search results all pointed to one thing: bunions, actually, bunionettes to be more specific. Gross. I thought only old, overweight people got those…ignorance is bliss. I’m not an advocate of self-diagnosing, but I’m nearly 100% certain it’s what I’m currently suffering from.

It turns out that this is much more common in women than men because of high heels and pointed toe shoes. Basically, it is caused by restrictive shoes that cause the base of the pinky toe to move out of position, causing the bump to form and the pinky toe to turn in toward the 4th toe.

click for source

That’s exactly what my foot looks like. The only non-surgical treatments are to wear less restrictive shoes, no high heels, orthotics, cushions, and less activity that puts pressure on the bunionette. The last ditch treatment is surgery. Fantastic. For now, the wide-width ASICS that I purchased are going to have to do. I feel okay during the run, but the outsides of my feet are tender afterwards.

Well, they must be doing better than just getting me by. My times have been improving greatly since I purchased them. So, I completed last week’s 11 mile run in 2:06. Well, I finished today’s 12 mile run in 2:10!!! Did I mention that I also completed this without music? I’m pretty stoked. I wasn’t even breathing hard for most of the run, I took 30-60 second walk breaks every mile to ease the pressure in my newly-discovered bunionettes, and still averaged a 10:30 min/mile pace. Yay!

With the adrenaline from race day pushing me, I wonder what time I’ll be able to get for my half marathon in 2 weeks! I’m not set on achieving a specific time since it’s my first race, but I’m dying to know how well I’ll be able to do. We’ll see soon!

Question of the Day: What’s your favorite type of tea? Any tips for a first race and first half marathon? I’m going to be asking for tips probably for the next 2 weeks haha.

My tip for the race : don’t drink too much coffee before the race ! I did it for my first 10K and it was terrible ! I felt all the coffee moving in my stomach while running loool. Bad bad bad idea !! but after a few kms it was ok lol

I love peppermint tea! It is so soothing and relaxing.
I completed my first marathon last fall. I would recommend sticking to your training program and if you have a hard day keep pushing through because the next day will be completely different.

Mmm the sandwich and soup looks great…such a wonderful combination of foods to make up a meal :) And my favorite kind of tea is Jasmine Green tea! Yumm
I would say for your first Half, don’t go for a time goal… just work on finishing it and pacing yourself throughout the race!

I can’t wait to visit a tea room someday! All the food looks delish, and I want that scooooone. And I hope your feet stay healthy, b/c I kind of have that but on the other side of my feet and it used to be worse but I think now they’re better. :)

That looks like the perfect place to go to with girlfriends. It reminds me of a small little cafe that I went to in elementary school for my friend’s birthday. We had tea and small desserts–we felt so mature and proper!

Aww, Mochi looks so cute there. I love your dog’s name because even though my dog’s name is Meeko, everyone in my family calls her Mokey (they say it is because she’s like a monkey… who knows).

Yikes on the bunions! My good friend has bunions and she is not old or overweight so don’t feel like you are a weirdo if you do have them :-)

I’ve done two half marathons so I’m not an expert, but I’d say to just make sure you don’t do anything weird or out of the ordinary leading up to it. Eat the same foods, do the same workouts, etc. You don’t want to upset your stomach or get hurt right before the race!

Oh darling, I can sympathize on the bunions! I have one developing also and my doc doesn’t know if it’s genetic (from my mom) or because I was a ballerina for so long. Either way, I’m probably gonna do the surgery in the next few years. They hurt!!

Sorry about the bunions! I found out in the fall that I have plantar fasciitis but it hasn’t been bothering me lately. But apparently it’s also really common in old and overweight people, so I felt weird for having it too haha!

dude we have the same foot problem but I have a huge bunion on the other side too (i know this is disgusting to write about but it’s true…i have xrays on my blog) anyways…what you need to do is order some lamb wool online and stick it in your sock next to that taylor bunion. I ordered some and use it to cushion my toe against my foot and it’s helped SO MUCH. *Almost* no pain. Anyways let me know if you can’t find it but if you don’t start doing it WILL get worse. Got to the point where I couldn’t sleep at night cause of the pain. I was suppose to have surgery last year but postponed it. GULP.

OMG! I got those bunions some years ago, before I started running, and then they just went away and have not come back since {knocking on wood}. As far as tips for your first half marathon is to try to not “re-think” it too much, I know is hard to overcome the excitement, but try to see it as just another training run. I made the mistake of getting overly excited about my first and I couldn’t sleep at night, ended up taking a gel during the race that I had never taken before and gave me a stomache, ran with sunglasses again for the first time and wanted to throw them away half the way… So the point is stay to your usual as much as possible, and don’t stress it.